The goal of any successful blog writer is to have as many people as possible read their post and benefit from the information being shared. We wouldn’t be doing Digital Ink if we didn’t hope that many of you would read what we have to share, and if you feel it’s worthwhile, pass it along to your friends and co-workers.
There are a plethora of paths to take in finding ways to maximize your readership, but one route some people are unaware of is via LinkedIn. Wait, isn’t that the resume-networking-business-job-hunter website? Yes, but it’s so much more.
It is THE professional web. If you are a business owner or entrepreneur, or a working person who is blogging, you should consider LinkedIn as a valuable place for getting more exposure.
Keep reading to discover five ways to use LinkedIn to drive more traffic to your blog.
If you are active and engaged on LinkedIn, members are going to click through to view your profile.
1. Add Profile Links
Your LinkedIn profile is where members are going to land to learn more you.
From your profile, the most natural next step that members will take if they are intrigued or interested in what they see is to click through one of the links that you showcase on your profile under Websites.
Get creative with your LinkedIn profile website links.
Showcasing descriptive and interesting links on your LinkedIn profile will encourage visitors to click through!
You can link directly to your blog homepage.
2: Bring More People to the Blog Party
If you want to grow your visibility on LinkedIn, connect with anyone who presents a good reason for connecting, and as you grow your connections, your updates on LinkedIn will be visible to more people – hence more opportunities for people to view your blog!
3: Take Action – Be Active
You can’t win if you don’t play. And you can’t get noticed if you don’t take action on LinkedIn. Every action you take on the network will show up as an update on the homepage of your connections. If you’re active, some of your updates may even show in the “Network Update” that LinkedIn sends to members via a weekly email.
Ideally, visiting LinkedIn a few times a week to post interesting and compelling status updates, join in a few group discussions and answer a question or two will keep your profile active. Do not forget to engage with connections as well
4: Use LinkedIn on the Go
Mobile devices are accounting for an increasing amount of LinkedIn traffic.
LinkedIn has developed robust mobile applications to make networking on the go easy and fun. When you participate on LinkedIn through your mobile devices so that you can stay engaged and visible with your connections on the fly.
5: Post Blog Articles as Status Updates and Link to Relevant Articles
It goes without saying that to drive traffic to your blog from any social network, your blog posts need to be shared with your network.
- Manually post a link to a particular blog post in order to pull an image and control the messaging.
- Don’t be afraid to repurpose your blog posts as status updates from time to time (see image below).
- Post during high-traffic periods (lunchtime and afternoons).
- Edit your comments to engage your connections.
